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XVideos.com Files 3 More Cybersquatting Cases

Rhett PardonAug 20, 2014 10:15 AM PDT

LAS VEGAS — The parent company of XVideos.com has filed three more cybersquatting cases with WIPO over adult tube sites that use "XVideos" in their domain names.

In the latest cases filed at WIPO, XVideos.com's operator made separate complaints over the domains XVideosDaily.com and XVideosToday.net, both registered to Andrey Kuzmenko of Ukraine, as well as XVideos.nu, which is registered to a private domain service.

All three cases are in the hands of WIPO arbitrators and pending. Kuzmenko did not reply to XBIZ for comment over the two cases filed against his domains.

WGCZ S.R.O., XVideos.com's parent company, operates scores of other tube sites including XNXX.com and is based in Czechoslovakia and has U.S. operations in Las Vegas.

The company recently filed numerous cybersquatting cases, known as UDRP filings, against entrepreneurs and companies that ride on its tube sites' coattails.

In each of those six cases, respondents failed to reply to WGCZ's accusations, and arbitrators ruled that each of the websites were registered and used the site in bad faith because the names were similar to either "XNXX" or "XVideos" because the names shared common characteristics to the brands. Each of the tube sites were handed over to WGCZ.

WGCZ has held the a U.S. trademark on its XVideos brand since 2012 and its XNXX brand since 2013.

Adult industry attorney Marc Randazza on Wednesday told XBIZ that cybersquatting cases keep on coming up because the rewards of traffic are immense.

"Cybersquatting is a huge problem in the adult entertainment business," Randazza said. "As soon as a site, be it a porn paysite or a porn tube site, as soon as it gains any traffic traction at all, there are people out there who know that they can make money off of stealing traffic through cybersquatting."

As far as how much one site can pull down during the course of cybersquatting on a porn brand, that's uncertain, Randazza said.

"But, the way things are structured, the cost of such a site is minimal," he said. "Ten bucks a year on average to register a domain name. If you make $11, then you turned a profit.

"Of course, it is rare for one of these guys to have only one cybersquatting site. Cybersquatting is huge business, and some squatters own thousands of such sites."

Another financial course, porn domain cybersquatters often take involves trying to sell the site to the rightful owner, he said.

"If you calculate the costs of a UDRP proceeding (with its $1,500 filing fee), I often hear from these crooks and they offer to sell it for just under that price. But, of course, if you pay them, you make it a virtual certainty that you'll be paying them again and again."